2010

Morsi Buys Power in Egypt - Payoff to Civil Servants

15:21 - PDT - July 4, 2012 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - It hasn't taken the Muslim Brotherhood's Mohammed Morsi long to consolidate power as Egypt's new president. Sources close to the matter have revealed that he recently decided, without apparent authority to, "...implement a 15 percent social allowance increase for government employees and the 10 percent increase for civilian and military pensioners, which he raised to 15 percent the next day, without consulting the finance minister." [source, http://www.egyptindependent.com/news/morsy-didn-t-consult-finance-minister-over-raise-says-sourceMorsy didn't consult finance minister over raise, says source, A Al-Masry Al-Youm, as translated by the Egyptian Independent]

Such a move, in light of Egypt's worsening debt crisis [see, Michael Schuman, Why the New Egyptian President's Biggest Worry Could Be the Economy, http://business.time.com/2012/06/27/why-the-new-egyptian-presidents-biggest-worry-could-be-the-economy/, Time Magazine] can only be seen as a high stakes attempt to increase Morsi's leverage and make the rewarded government employees, and pensioners even more beholding to his regime.

This extra-legal power power grab is more proof that the Brotherhood clearly intends to at some point in the near future dominate Egypt by whatever means necessary in this case using "social justice, Islamist style," as a guise.